DoJ, Tsarnaev plea-dealing for life imprisonment?

posted at 12:43 pm on April 30, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

Preliminary talks have been under way “for the past few days” to allow Boston bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to resume providing investigators with information about the attacks in exchange for having the death penalty taken off the table, two government sources say.

Negotiations are in the very early stages, and not a sign lawyers for the 19-year-old suspect are ready to make a deal, said one source, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the private discussions.

Allahpundit pointed out earlier that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s team just added Judy Clarke in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. What we didn’t know was how much the prosecution might want to cooperate with that effort. That might be the quickest payoff Clarke has ever delivered for a defendant.

Here’s the question, though — will Dzhokhar give the US anything valuable in exchange for avoiding the death penalty? Apparently the DoJ and FBI must think so, or else they wouldn’t have been pursuing a deal “for the past few days,” assuming that CNN’s report is accurate. If Dzhokhar is the only surviving member of the terrorist conspiracy, what good would his information be? The only way a quick deal on this basis makes sense is if federal investigators think there is a lot more to the Boston Marathon bombing than just a couple of disaffected refugees becoming “self-radicalized.” And since older brother and Dagestan traveler Tamerlan has been dead for more than a week, they must think that Dzhokhar has some contacts of his own to discuss.

We haven’t heard much about those students arrested ten days ago in New Bedford, have we? One of their lawyers spoke out over the weekend to distance his clients from Dzhokhar:

Two college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who were jailed by immigration authorities the day after his capture had nothing to do with the deadly attack and had seen no hints that he harbored any violent thoughts or terrorist sympathies, a lawyer for one of them said Friday.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, who are from Kazakhstan, were classmates with Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They appeared alongside him in a recent photograph of a group of young men visiting New York City’s Times Square. They were detained April 20 after being questioned in connection with the bombing, which had killed three people and injured more than 260 others a few days earlier.

“These kids are just as shocked and horrified about what happened as everyone else,” Kadyrbayev’s lawyer, Robert Stahl, said in a phone interview. “They can’t even fathom something like this from a kid who seemed to be a typical young college student.”

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev have been interviewed at length, twice, by FBI agents and have cooperated fully, said Stahl, a former federal prosecutor. They are not suspects but are being held for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes, Stahl said. They are being detained at a county jail in Boston.

And that may very well be the case. It seems as though the feds still think Dzhokhar has some valuable intel for them — again, assuming CNN has gotten this story right — and that sounds as though this was no amateur home-grown isolated incident after all.

If the government reaches a deal with Tsarnaev to avoid the death penalty, how will Boston react?

Update: CNN wasn’t the first to this story. The Daily Mail in the UK had it a few hours earlier, although they make it sound more clearly like a defense initiative:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyer have started very early talks about a possible deal in which the 19-year-old would cooperate in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, according to legal sources.

His defence team got a major boost yesterday with the addition of a prominent anti-death penalty lawyer who has managed to get life sentences for several high-profile clients.

If this has been going on for “a few days,” though, they must have something — or someone, or someones — to give up that is of interest to the FBI and DoJ.

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On tv the prosecutors always get the information first and then decide whether to use it and give the criminal the deal. Maybe if they show him a bunch Law & Order reruns Dzhokhar will get a better idea of how this is supposed to work.

Or just put him in the general prison population and let Darwanism take its course.

Or just put him in the general prison population and let Darwanism take its course.

Ideally, the public hanging would be the best option, for entertainments sake and saving taxpayer dollars. In prison, he’d probably be isolated from the general prison population due to his specific crime and notoriety.

Allahpundit pointed out earlier that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s team just added Judy Clarke in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. What we didn’t know was how much the prosecution might want to cooperate with that effort. That might be the quickest payoff Clarke has ever delivered for a defendant.

Yay! Now Clarke will have time to help out the Benghazi whistle-blowers!

Life without parole and in solitary confinement for the next 60 years? No newspapers, TV, radio, or computer? Yeah, I’d be O.K. with that for him. I suspect the cost would be less than all the appeals with a death penalty. There would be lots of opportunists with their hands out.

Who is surprised by this? There is no way this punk had access to any high levels of terrorist cells, which tells me the Administration wants the whole affair buried fast as possible. It’s the perfect cover! Anything he ‘reveals’ (which will be nothing) will never be known because of national security concerns. So, Obama stays safe without ‘being able’ to answer any questions about what Intel we got.

Someone is already picking out his window dressing for the window the size of shoe box at ADX in Florence Colorado, where he will spend the rest of his natural life. Just down the hall from Eric Rudolph, Ted Kandinsky, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reed and Umar Abdulmutallab.

Put the scumbag muslim in general population and have the guards “leak” that they all have to go to a mandatory staff meeting for a couple of hours.

Problem solved. He’ll get a rectal exam similar to Chris Stevens and they can parade him around the cell block after they sodomize and beat him to death. Maybe even sing some praises to allah like they did when Stevens was dragged around.

Call obama during the violation/beating and he should be able to respond sometime within 24 hrs.

You might want nonpartisan and bayam to watch out for this prisoners ‘rights” when they release him to the general population. I’m sure they’ll listen to them.

It seems to me that a plea bargain – if it has been offered – is all about the perception.

If we view Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a martyr, then death for him is an optimal outcome.

However if he’s viewed as an Intelligence Asset and actually knows about terror networks operating within the US of A, then keeping him alive a d ready to talk at the “drop of a bar of soap” is a pretty good outcome. Obviously, if his Intel value is no longer necessary, placing him within the general prison population will handle the disposal.

And what do we do if he is to be an object lesson for future terrorists? I’d have to say rotting in a maximum security jail is for a dedicated terrorist is probably not the end they’d be seeking.

How many times do people have to see the Indonesian and his junta operate before they get it?

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on April 30, 2013 at 1:08 PM

There is no set of facts that can possibly persuade the multiculturalists that Obama administration is not empowering the Islamists. I suspect many of them would willingly be martyred to defend their naive view of Islam.

It’s called a “proffer,” and gives both sides a free bite at the apple. The defense proposes making a proffer of what information the defendant has to trade. The US Attorney agrees that nothing in the proffer can be used against the deft. Then the actual proffer is made verbally or in writing and the USA and the law enforcement agency decide whether it’s worth their while to pursue it. It’s obviously in the defendant’s best interest to make the info as “sweet” or appealing as possible, because if the proffer’s accepted, the deal is cut and unless the defendant is caught lying or withholding, the government has to honor its end. We did these all the time in drug cases. The biggest problem is that as time goes by, the information gets stale and less valuable. If all Jahar can say in the proffer is that he and his brother acted alone, the USA should turn it down and go to trial and ask for the needle. They’ve already got a lock on that.

I don’t have a problem with saving some time and money with this. A death penalty verdict would almost certainly never be carried out given the federal judiciary, legions of leftist lawyers, and the character and integrity of the current President and Attorney General.

True, McVeigh WAS executed, but he was native-born white guy who pretty much abandoned the appeals process, not a wondrously-diverse Muslim immigrant.

Here’s the question, though — will Dzhokhar give the US anything valuable in exchange for avoiding the death penalty?

“I know nothing. We did it all alone. Yeah, that’s right we did it all alone. And my brother made me do it. I know nothing more. That’s what you want me to say, right Mr. Holder? Where do I sign?” — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev some time in the near future.

Call me cynical, but Team SCOAMT has to ensure two things (at least in their minds):

- The immediate meme of the Lone Wolves Cell not containing more than 2 must be preserved.
- The possibility of releasing Dzhokhar to prevent a future series of terror attacks designed to force the release of Dzhokhar from continuing must be preserved.

When the government decided not to try this guy as an enemy combatant the moderate babble on HA was all about the death penalty still being on the table. I called that line of thinking naive at best and utter BS otherwise.

Told ya so. This administration was never going to make the death penalty an option. The system you said was going to work to deliver justice failed.

This was Holder’s end game all long. Don’t let the kid talk without giving him “something” in exchange. That “something” was always planned to be no death sentence. Otherwise they would have had to make up a less palatable reason.

This kid will be a Muslim prison hero until the day he is freed by the Islamic caliphate that the U.S. is destined to become.

Plea during an open and shut case? Really? Is that the purpose of plea bargaining? Is law enforcement so incompetent that they spend zillions proving what has been proven on day 3, then make a deal because the liberals have screwed up the court system so bad it isn’t a slam-dunk?

The only thing Obama would want in exchange is “now shut up and pretend you guys are Tea Party guys”. They will pretend it was for secret information (which was being provided before the DOJ Mirandized him).